A special task force created by the Sandy City Council continues to wrestle with the issue of whether or not the city should relax its zoning regulations.

The eight-member panel essentially went through a college course last week during a visit to its most recent meeting by Gerard Mildner, an associate professor in real estate finance in the School of Business Administration at Portland State University.

With the initial statement that zoning is generally demanded by local residents, Mildner outlined residents’ reasons for wanting zoning restrictions, reasons often shared by city leaders.

Zoning’s advantage of grouping similar uses into geographic clusters to avoid nuisances seemed to spur the group to probe the major question it has been asked to resolve.

That question simply is: Should a wider variety of activity be allowed in certain zones such as allowing some commercial activity in an industrial zone or light manufacturing in a commercial zone?

But the panel has found that the question does not have a simple answer, and after fours of discussion has set another two-hour session for Aug. 23.

Mildner says there could be some regrets for adhering to strict zoning, which is the reason the question came before the City Council. Some potential business owners have been sent packing because their business plans didn’t adhere to the more strict zoning rules in the Municipal Code.

But Mildner didn’t express such conservative views, favoring a more relaxed approach to zoning. His advice to the group’s seven members present last week was quite similar to the city staff proposal before the council — a proposal that caused the formation of this task force.

Zoning is not new to the city of Sandy, beginning in 1972, according to Planning Director Tracy Brown. The zoning map in use today, he said, was approved 15 years ago.

As a general statement, Mildner said zoning doesn’t create land value, even though industrial land usually is lower priced than land zoned for commercial uses. There are other reasons, he said, for the difference in land value.

He advised city officials to allow business owners to choose the activities that fit their business plans. He is of an opinion similar to that of Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mitch Speck, who said supply and demand will have an effect on land value, depending on its use.

Mildner suggested a good policy is to “allow the market to do what it will do.”

Task force member and planning commissioner Ron Lesowski said he favors allowing some incidental, commercial uses in industrial areas.

Mildner agreed with that concept, suggesting that allowing exceptions to the strict interpretation of zoning rules is good for the growth of a city’s business community.

Joining the attitude that loosening the more strict rules is a good idea was task force member and planning commissioner Susie Jenkins.

To accomplish this goal, Mildner said, just requires regulating the intensity of use within certain zones — particularly industrial.

City Manager Scott Lazenby described one of the problems with strict zoning rules when he gave the example of an industrial warehouse that wanted to create interior quarters for a night watchman. But strict rules didn’t allow that use in industrial zoning.

City councilor and task force chairman Jeremy Pietzold as well as Lesowski agreed that the city’s code isn’t broken. It just needs some improvement; perhaps to be simplified by identifying which uses are not allowed in each zone.

Mildner said the code needs clarity to attract development, noting that ambiguous rules create confusion.

“Clear laws are good laws,” he said.

At the next meeting, the panel is likely to consider possible changes to the commercial (C-2) zoning rules. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 23, in the council chamber on the lower floor of City Hall, 39250 Pioneer Blvd.

Members of the task force include Pietzold and members Dave Beitler, Jerry Crosby, Susie Jenkins, Ron Lesowski, Brad Picking, Bob Skipper and Mitch Speck.

For more information, call Brown at 503-668-4886, Lazenby at 503-668-6927 or Pietzold at 503-310-7714 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .